The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, August 13, 1999, Image 1
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Gamecock movie
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Serving the Carolina Community since 1908 pageS
>rurne93. Number 5 University of South Carolina Friday, Augurt 13,1999
ngineering
ean faces
ial Dec. 13
a Virginia
r Clayton Kale
ws Editor
The dean <f USC’s College of Engi
«ring and Iiformation Technology
ill stand trill Dec. 13 for allegedly
ibezzling tlousands of dollars in a
evious job.
Craig Roge-s was indicted by a Vir
K3ERS
ved.
guua grana jury
on five counts of
eifibezzlement of
public funds and
three counts of
obtaining money
or property under
false pretenses.
He has stepped
down from his
administrative
duties until the
matter is re
Rogers alUedly embezzled funds
‘>m the Virgita Polytechnic Institute,
here he was (Vector of a research cen
;r.
Rogers did’t return phone calls,
ut said in a Rjpared statement that
e was shockeiby the allegations.
“I am puzzid by the nature of the
bairns, but I hie no doubt that my ac
ions will be foud appropriate and were
•'deed in the 1st interest of Virginia
Ji and the rfoarch center,” he said.
Authority didn’t disclose the
mount of moity involved, but the in
tictments alle$ thousands of dollars
’ state funds ere handled lmprop
«-ly-. .
Virginia SUe Police began inves
igating after Onplaints that Rogers
(as taking fun< for the research cen
er and puttin|hem into Paradigm
ic , a private coforation that no longer
lists.
According Hffidavits filed in the
ontgomery C^rity Circuit court, the
iployees proved documents to sup
rt their claim
The grand ju. charged Rogers with
d counts of sp\ding public funds on
ternational lgineering confer
ees without opining proper autho
•auon.
A third embiZienient indictment
leges that Rog-s pUt $1,500 of pub
: fimds into a piate banking account
Rogers speni5 years 0n the facu
of Virginia
He was a pressor of mechanical
igineering an£ieCame the center’s
ending director 1988. He left Tech
August 19961USC.
With the absige 0f Rogers, five of
iC's deanshipire open. Other va
at deanships aijn the Darla Moore
hool of Businei the College of Ap
ed iYofessionShe College of Edu
■ion and the S<iol of Music.
It is still unc|r whether Rogers
II teach in the i
Joe Gibbons * be acting dean un
• the matter i%solved. Gibbons
is been at USCnCe 1963.
i mm
Ashton June Photo Editor
Information management junior Loretta Moore and liberal arts junior Marsden Johnson move their belongings
out of a summer residence hall in the Towers. Students moved out of summer housing in Douglas and
Snowden this past Saturday to make room for almost 1,000 students who will move into the Towers this
weekend.
Greek housing
moves closer to
groundbreaking
By Kevin Langston
Vleupoinls Editor _.
Greek organizations will be told in
the upcoming months to ready them
selves for development on the proposed
Greek housing sites.
Roughly eight blocks of land near
Wheat, Assembly, Gadsen, Blossom,
Wayne and Lincoln streets have been
purchased by USC in order to imple
ment a Greek housing system and to
build the Strom Thurmond Fitness and
Wellness Center.
The $43 million project is set to be
gin in October with further land prepa
rations for the wellness center and the
preliminary stages of the Greek hous
ing.
There are a proposed 14 sites, and
eight of them should be ready for de
velopment in .the next few months. The
next six will, in turn, become available
as USC continues the land acquisition
process.
The initial nine sites that were clos
er to campus were all passed on by the
prospective fraternities and sororities
in hopes of getting a spot in this new
area. These previous sites will still be
used if necessary.
According to Director of Student
Life Jerry Brewer, the Greek organi
zations with intent to build will be told
to bring their information before a se
lection committee. The committee
will then determine what organizations
are ready to build. He expects ground
to be broken in fall of 2000.
The Greek Village is expected to
house both fraternities and sororities.
Three of the Greek organizations that
spoke with the selection committee this
past week were sororities.
The construction process should
take up to 11 months per house, so
Greek students should be moving into
their houses by fall of 2001.
Brewer said it's very possible for
more than eight organizations to be
ready to begin building when they re
quest individual information. If it comes
to that, Brewer said an unbiased lot
tery-style drawing would be held.
GREEK continued on page 7A
Special lo The Gamecock
The latest sketch of what Greek housing (left) will look like upon comple
tion. The houses, along with the Strom Thurmond Fitness and Wellness
Center (right), are expected to be complete by fall 2001.
Trustees approve 3 percent tuition increase
By Clayton Kale
and Adam Dawkins
Staff Writers
USC’s Board of Trustees approved
a $591.7 million budget June 23 for
1999-2000 that includes a small tuition
increase for students at its eight cam
puses.
Undergraduate students from South
Carolina will see the cost of attending
USC-Columbia increase by 3 percent,
or $55 per semester, beginning this fall.
Under the plan, a South Carolina
undergraduate’s tuition and fees will
be $1,820 per semester, or $3,640 per
school year, up from $3,530 for 1998
1999. There will be no increase in anj
across-the-board fees, such as the stu
dent activities fee, student health fee,
athletics fee or the student technolo
gy fee.
Along with the tuition increase,
trustees over the summer approved sev
eral other measures:
• Trustees approved the use of
$136,620.85 from the now-defunct Rus
sell History Lecture Endowment In
come Fund and will use it to fund schol
arships for this fiscal year.
• The board approved an increase in
faculty salaries and a request for mon
ey to hire a chief informations officer.
• The board passed a proposal granti
ng Time Warner the right to sponsor
events at the Koger Center. Time Warn
er will pay the university $40,000 and
offer 6,000 free, 30-second commer
rial spots per year. The two-year con
tract began July 1.
• The Board of Trustees also approved
the purchase of a $1 million message
board for the northern scoreboard of
Williams-Brice Stadium.
As for the tuition increase, it’s among
the lowest of state-supported schools
in the Southeast.
“With the ongoing effort to improve
academic programs at USC, I think this
increase is more than reasonable,” Eng
lish sophomore Scarlett Smith said.
Graduate students from South Car
olina also will see their tuition increase
by 3 percent. Non-resident undergrad
TRUSTEES continued on page 5A
Ashton June Photo Kditor
Colombians Li ; Glra1 an<1 Beatrlz Santamaria and Venezuelans
R®Vna Exposlt and l^*®1 Irausquln enjoy a day on the Horseshoe.
USC to see fewer new faces than usual this fall
By Brad Walters
Editor in Chief
Students returning to Carolina for
classes won't see quite as many new
faces in the crowd this fall, as freshman
enrollment at USC is expected to drop
for the second straight year.
According to preliminary statistics,
this fall’s freshman class is expected to
total around 2,650 students, a decrease
of about 100 students from last year.
Terry Davis, director of admissions,
attributes the slight decrease, in part,
to the cuts that were made in USC’s
Transition Year program this past
spring. The program, designed to help
^students on the admissions "bubble"
atijust to the first year of college, ad
mitted 300 students last year, but on
ly about 175 this year.
Between fall 1997 and fall 1998, en
rollment dropped by more than 200 stu
dents because USC increased admis
sions standards that year. Davis said
it will probably take “two or three years”
for the number of admitted freshmen
to get back where it was in 1997, when
USC admitted almost 3,000 freshmen.
Enrollment has dropped despite the
advent of the Palmetto LIFE scholar
ship, which awards $2,000 a year to
students with a B-average in high school
and at least 1,000 on the SAT.
Those scholarships, which were
available to students beginning in the
fall 1998 semester, complement the
more exclusive Palmetto Fellows schol
arships, which provide $ 5,000 annu
ally to students with an SAT score of
1,200 and grade point average of 3.5 on
a 4.0 scale.
Excitement about the tenure of Lou
Holtz as USC's new head football coach
probably enticed a few more students
to enroll who otherwise might not have,
as well.
“I think personalities like him [Holtz]
always pique an interest,” Davis said.
“Schools that win a lot of games tend
to see an increase in admissions appli
cations.”
While freshman enrollment has de
creased somewhat, the average SAT
score of incoming freshman has re
mained steady at right around 1100 out
of 1600.
“This class is going to be real simi
lar to last year’s,” Davis said. “The trend
continues that we have more female
applicants than male, as well.”
USC's Honors College attracted a
crop of a little more than 250 stu
dents this year whose average SAT
scores are in the mid to upper 1300s,
again similar to last year.
USC’s Carolina Scholars, the top
students from the state who have come
to USC, each will get $28,000 over four
years.
The scholars boast average SAT
scores of 1427 and rank in the top 1 per
cent of their graduating classes.
Brad Walters Hie Gamecock